Athletics News

A Message From @GW_AD

Patrick Nero Shares Gratitude with GW Community

Entering his fifth year as AD, Nero has overseen extraordinary success in GW Athletics.

June 30, 2015
Dear member of the GW Athletics Family,

A few weeks ago 77 of our student-athletes marched on the National Mall, making the transition from GW students to GW Alumni. It is always a bittersweet moment as we celebrate all they have accomplished while knowing that we will miss seeing them as often. Personally, this was a special class of student-athletes as this group was the first that I had the honor to work with for all four of their undergraduate years.

Graduating our student-athletes and preparing them for what lies beyond GW will always be our top priority. This year that happened with extraordinary success. After more than 9,500 hours of community service were performed, 50 All-Conference performers named, 32 All-Academic accolades garnered, seven student-athletes tabbed as All-Americans and three team championships won in 2014-15 alone, GW Athletics rose to the challenge of meeting the university’s world-class reputation.

We enjoyed our women’s basketball team re-staking its claim as the top program in the Atlantic 10 with regular season and tournament titles and cheered on as the gymnastics program won its first-ever East Atlantic Gymnastics League title. We also marveled at the continued A-10 dominance of men’s tennis after their fourth conference crown in five years.

Other programs are knocking on the door of the elite. Men’s basketball has now made back-to-back postseason appearances for only the 10th time ever, sailing placed 13th in the country at women’s nationals, men’s and women’s squash finished with their best-ever national rankings, and volleyball made its first A-10 title game appearance since 2002 with its sights set on winning the championship at home next season. Additionally, baseball hosted the A-10 Championship at Tucker Field after its first 30-win campaign since 2005 and women’s soccer advanced to the A-10 Semifinals after making its first back-to-back A-10 Championship appearances since 1997 and 1998. We’ve also welcomed new head coaches in lacrosse, men’s and women’s swimming and men’s and women’s water polo, who are poised to take those programs to another level of success.

Our Graduation Success Rate of 95 came in 11 percent higher than the national average, and seven of our teams were recognized by the NCAA for perfect multi-year academic progress rates and honored with public recognition awards for having an APR in the top 10 percent of their sport.

So what’s next for GW Athletics? With you – our hard-working student-athletes, loyal alumni, fans, parents and friends behind us – our goal of building Champions in the Classroom, Community and Competition is always within reach. We’re renovating Lloyd Gym on the Mt. Vernon campus for our many teams that train and play at the beautiful location, replacing the softball field in preparation to host the 2016 A-10 Championship and building a clubhouse at Tucker Field. We’ve burgeoned our running programs after the debuts of men’s and women’s indoor and outdoor track, and furthered our leadership training, mentorship and career services efforts for our more than 450 student-athletes in 27 varsity sports.

Thanks to the incredible support of our community, donations to the Athletic Department increased by 171% this past year. A generous gift by Ave Tucker to rename the baseball field "Tucker Field" led the fundraising efforts, and the philanthropic leadership of alumnus Gil Cisneros who spearheaded the Buff and Blue Fund Challenge paved the way for us to be able to provide high-level resources to our student-athletes.

The generosity of our community will continue to drive the future success of our program.